Memorandum 1

Memorandum 1

            The education system in Afghanistan has been devastated by many decades of political unrest. Completing elementary school is a dream for many Afghanis children. Mainly, this is particularly true for children living in rural areas and girls despite recent strides in raising enrolment. In the remote and impoverished regions of the country, the levels of enrollment are very diverse, and girls experience disparity in access to education. Girls comprise 60% of the estimated 3.7 million children who are not enrolled in school. Lack of female instructors contribute in part, the low enrollment of girls. Just 16% of all the schools in Afghanistan are girls’ schools, with the majority of such schools lacking adequate sanitation facilities and amenities, which discourage many girls from attending schools. Besides, social, cultural elements and cultural beliefs undermine the education of girl child in the country. Because of a lack of education opportunities, underage marriage is very rampant in the country, with about 17% of girls marrying before age 15 years.

In some areas, scarcity of schools and inadequate infrastructure, especially roads, hinder Afghanis children from acquiring education, as only a few who are committed and ambitious endure the long walks to respective school premises. Even so, lack of adequately trained educators contributes to the low quality of education they receive, since just 48% of them have the minimum academic requirement, which corresponds to an associate degree.

Moreover, the humanitarian and political crises experienced over the recent past decades has aggravated the already fragile system of education. Natural catastrophes, including floods, landslides, and earthquakes, serve to worsen the situation. These events increase the parents’ anxiety over the safety of their children, which sometimes forces them to hold back their children from schools. Structural challenges in the country’s education system, coupled with inefficient management of resources, hinders any proposed improvement.

The unemployment rate in Afghanistan is wanting. Comparatively, few Afghanis have access to reliable employment. Based on the World Bank Group (n.p.), 25% of the labor force is unemployed, and 80% of jobs are insecure and vulnerable, characterized by self-employment, wage-based labor, or unpaid positions. Twenty-five percent of Afghanis are youth and young adults aged between 15 and 30 years. This population is entering the labor market with little education amid limited job opportunities. Because of poor security and limited development resources, the creation of employment has failed to match population growth, and good jobs are few and sporadic.

Lack of education is believed to contribute to security issues and poor job security. Only about 54% of young Afghanis are illiterate. Afghanis women’s participation in the labor market is particularly low because of inactivity and low education attainment. Afghanis aged from 15 to 24 years have a 31% unemployment rate, whereas 42% are in neither vocational training, education, nor employment. The security situation constitutes the biggest threat to education and jobs. Secondary school attendance fell from 37% to 35% from 2013 to 2016 (World Bank Group, 2020).

The political instability in the country had led many citizens of the country to flee to neighboring countries, like Pakistan. The living conditions of the returnees are likely to deteriorate because of weaker employment prospects. According to the World Bank Group and UNHCR, the unemployment rates of returnees were higher in the country than in their host country (22). For example, the mean unemployment rate of returnees was 10% relative to 3% in the host countries. Therefore. Afghan returnees are more vulnerable concerning employment and earnings after they return to Afghanistan.

Critique Memo

Afghanistan continues to experience economic downturns with the slow growth of 1.8% in 2018 (The World Bank Group, “Overview” n.d.). The World Bank has stepped in to salvage the situation by supporting Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework (ANPDF). Consultation work and operations prioritize macro-fiscal policy and management, job creation, private investments, finance, human capital development, and public sector governance and anti-corruption, among others.

Afghanistan needs a robust education system to solve the problem of low literacy by mobilizing high enrollment, maintaining enrolled children in school, and nurturing them to become responsible and healthy citizens. Collaboration at all levels, including nationally provincial and regional level with the education ministry and other partners, support should focus on the most susceptible groups in remote parts of the country to resolve lack of education attributed to poverty, injustice, and continuing war. The efforts of improving literacy should focus more on girls, as they are the most vulnerable group. Educating the girl child is both an immoral imperative as well as an economic necessity.

The state should collaborate with a non-governmental organization, such as UNICEF, to boost the number of children attending schools. UNICEF, in particular, will help the state prioritize enrolment and retention of children in schools. The NGO supports the formal school system and the Community-Based Education program and can help in building schools and learning centers within a 3-kilometer range of communities. Increasing the number of schools in the country would enhance accessibility to the formal education of Afghanis children. The state should liaise with UNICEF to identify options for learning and to improve educational opportunities for the most vulnerable children.

UNICEF partner with the Afghanis Ministry of Education and other stakeholders to enhance education quality, improve the country’s education system, and support environments that facilitate development and learning. The state has adopted the Child-Friendly Schools plan, which prioritizes on inclusiveness, child-focused learning, and healthy, safe, and protective learning settings, which integrates community participation (UNICEF Afghanistan n.p.). The NGO supports the Ministry towards the efforts to establish a National Assessment Framework for the elementary education connected to a national qualification structure.

UNICEF discusses with the national and provincial governments and offers sustainable technical and financial support to the Ministry to upgrade management practices and coordination for collaboration. The NGO supports the design and implementation of new policies, programs, and plans with a focus on out-of-school kids, education of the girl-child, and early childhood development (ECD) (UNICEF Afghanistan n.p.). Moreover, UNICEF works closely with consultative councils in charge of managing schools, parents, communities, learners, and administrators to foster management of community school.

To counter the effects of natural disasters, the NGO offers emergency education to children during disasters and wars to guarantee continuity of schooling. Together with Save the Children, UNICEF co-leads the Education in Emergencies Working Group that backs the Ministry in its response to the disaster (UNICEF Afghanistan, 2019). The government should work with NGOs to promote social cohesion and peace in communities throughout the country, especially in volatile regions.

To address its unemployment, Afghanistan should stimulate its growth. Economic growth can have short or medium-term effects on unemployment. Economic growth can enhance employment rates because it involves the construction of infrastructures and manufacturing plants, which needs workers to facilitate them. Increase demand for labor will pull many Afghanis out of unemployment and idleness. Economic growth can also increase the availability of better jobs, as natives will ditch farm jobs for factory and office jobs. In the long term, however, economic growth could reduce the rates of employments (The World Bank, “Jobless Growth?” 30). Improvement in Afghan’s economy may lead to improve living standards, and families will afford to send their children to school and keep them there until they complete primary and continue to the highest possible level. Households can support their sick and disables, and some mothers can even withdraw from employment to take care of domestic chores.

The government of Afghanistan has developed programs targeting Afghanis women, for example, the Women’s Economic Empowerment Rural Development Project (WEE-RDP) (The Word Bank 31). The projects intend to empower Afghanis women both economically and socially. It targets poor women in selected rural communities. Again, this project builds on the abandoned Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Project (AREDP). It targets 5,000 villages in 76 districts across the country. Moreover, the project works in close partnership with multiple other development programs targeting rural communities, such as microfinance institutions, the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development projects, Citizen’s Charter, Access to Finance Project, and National Horticulture and Livestock Project.

The project began mobilizing communities via Community Development Councils in territories previously handled by AREDP. It promises to offer support to Afghanis women institutions at the community level via seed capital and technical support and connect them to formal funding organizations and markets to facilitate the desired empowerment. In one of its components, the project focuses on improving women’s access to finance. In this regard, it provides seed grants to eligible self-help groups SHGs and VSLAs to develop long-term recurring funding and promote access to financial services through collaboration with microfinance firms. Commercial banks to foster financial inclusion of women associations (The World Bank, “Country Update” 30). Importantly, the component seeks to remove all institutional limitations on Afghanis rural women’s access to formal financial services.

Under the project, the pace of social mobilization of women has been remarkable, as over 4,000 SHGs have been created by July 2019. According to The World Bank (“country update” 30), the total number of SHGs in rural Afghanistan has surpassed that built before the start of WEERDP. Seventy-eight percent of SHG members are poor and destitute as per the Citizen’s Charter data, which the project uses to find candidates. The self-help groups have saved more than $125,000 and have disbursed more than 4,500 loans to an estimated 6.1 million enrollees (The World Bank, “Country Update” 30).

Unless the Afghanis government reaches out to rebels leaders of the Taliban, the country may never experience political stability, which determines economic and social prosperity. Besides, the government should invest in infrastructure to facilitate the growth of the economy. It should borrow money from global financing institutions such as the World Bank and IMF to implement projects to increase transportation and access to all its areas. It should also undertake intensive electrification of its rural communities to trigger production.

References

The World Bank Group & UNHCR. “Living Conditions and Settlement Decisions of Recent Afghan Returnees.” 2019.

The World Bank Group. Afghanistan Overview. 2020.

The World Bank. “Country Update: The World Bank Group in Afghanistan.” October 2019. 17 March 2020.

The World Bank. Jobless Growth? 2018.

UNICEF Afghanistan. Education: Providing Quality Education for all. 1 September 2019.